Public support for a proposal that would trigger a referendum to determine Puerto Rico’s political future will be key to forcing the measure through the US Senate where it faces stiff Republican resistance, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva said.
“There is a general understanding that legacies have to change and that the legacy of Puerto Rico being a colony for 124 years is a legacy that has to change,” Grijalva, D-Ariz., said in a telephone interview Saturday from Puerto Rico. “I think there will be a great deal of public initiative to move this forward and I hope the Senate pays attention.”
Grijalva, the chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, was in the U.S. territory with other House Democrats over the weekend seeking public feedback on the measure called the Puerto Rico Status Act.
If passed, the measure would require Puerto Ricans to choose from three options: independence, statehood, or sovereignty in free association with the U.S. Unlike previous plebiscites, this one would be binding, and would require Congress to implement the new status.
Grijalva pushed back against the idea that the bill, yet to be introduced in committee, had no chance in the Senate.
“I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of this issue,” he said. “The House has to do its job and then the Senate needs to do its job.”
The island of 3.2 million people has been a U.S. possession since 1898 when William McKinley’s administration seized the colony at the end of the Spanish-American War.
